The Spring Game Experience: So Disrespected

I recently attended my son’s football team’s spring game. It was played on a college campus and we were playing a team from another state with a higher classification than our team’s classification. We are a 4A school and we were told prior to the game that the opponent was a 5A school. No big deal. We had a similar scenario with last year’s spring game and we walked away with a win.

Well (sigh)…this game was definitely different. My son’s initial response regarding the game’s outcome, “I felt so disrespected. I have never felt that disrespected in my [football] life”. I must admit that as a fan, it was an embarrassing loss. Our team just seemed to be overpowered in every aspect of the game…and they were, so we learned after the game. Our coach explained to us (fans gather with the team after each game to pray with the team) that the opposing team was actually equivalent to a 6A-8A team and we were equivalent to a 3A when playing against this team. So why did the Coach schedule a game like this one? To expose our team’s deficiencies. You see, now we can work on those areas all summer and perfect (or at least improve) on them before our first game of the season in August.

Life lesson: Sometimes the things we go through in life are designed to expose the “weaknesses” in our lives. They aren’t necessarily meant to hurt, harm or break us but to show us the areas of correction or those areas that need perfecting.

As my son continued to process the game through the week, he said, “I’m glad we lost that game. Had we won, we would think we were unbeatable for the entire season and would not think we needed to learn anything. We would not have prepared as hard [for the coming season].”

I challenge you to begin to see those “losses” (those so disrespectful and embarrassing experiences) as opportunities for learning the areas where we may need growth.

Always remember…Sister U Matter!®